Venus in Furs
the hedges, transplant flowers, turn over the flower beds, sweep the
gravel paths; I share his coarse food and his hard cot; I rise and go
to bed with the chickens. Now and then I hear that our mistress is
amusing herself, surrounded by admirers. Once I heard her gay laughter
even down here in the garden.
I seem awfully stupid to myself. Was it the result of my present life,
or was I so before? The month is drawing to a close—the day after
to-morrow. What will she do with me now, or has she forgotten me, and
left me to trim hedges and bind bouquets till my dying day?
A written order.
“The slave Gregor is herewith ordered to my personal service.
Wanda Dunajew.”
With a beating heart I draw aside the damask curtain on the following
morning, and enter the bed-room of my divinity. It is still filled with
a pleasant half darkness.
“Is it you, Gregor?” she asks, while I kneel before the fire-place,
building a fire. I tremble at the sound of the beloved voice. I cannot
see her herself; she is invisible behind the curtains of the
four-poster bed.
“Yes, my mistress,” I reply.
“How late is it?”
“Past nine o’clock.”
“Breakfast.”
I hasten to get it, and then kneel down with the tray beside her bed.
“Here is breakfast, my mistress.”
Wanda draws back the curtains, and curiously enough at the first glance
when I see her among the pillows with loosened flowing hair, she seems
an absolute stranger, a beautiful woman, but the beloved soft lines are
gone. This face is hard and has an expression of weariness and satiety.
Or is it simply that formerly my eye did not see this?
She fixes her green eyes upon me, more with curiosity than with menace,
perhaps even somewhat pityingly, and lazily pulls the dark sleeping fur
on which she lies over the bared shoulder.
At this moment she is very charming, very maddening, and I feel my
blood rising to my head and heart. The tray in my hands begins to sway.
She notices it and reached out for the whip which is lying on the
toilet-table.
“You are awkward, slave,” she says furrowing her brow.
I lower my looks to the ground, and hold the tray as steadily as
possible. She eats her breakfast, yawns, and stretches her opulent
limbs in the magnificent furs.
She has rung. I enter.
“Take this letter to Prince Corsini.”
I hurry into the city, and hand the letter to the Prince. He is a
handsome young man with glowing black eyes. Consumed with jealousy, I
take his answer to her.
“What is the matter with you?” she asks with lurking spitefulness. “You
are very pale.”
“Nothing, mistress, I merely walked rather fast.”
At luncheon the prince is at her side, and I am condemned to serve both
her and him. They joke, and I am, as if non-existent, for both. For a
brief moment I see black; I was just pouring some Bordeaux into his
glass, and spilled it over the table-cloth and her gown.
“How awkward,” Wanda exclaimed and slapped my face. The prince laughed,
and she also, but I felt the blood rising to my face.
After luncheon she drove in the Cascine. She has a little carriage with
a handsome, brown English horse, and holds the reins herself. I sit
behind and notice how coquettishly she acts, and nods with a smile when
one of the distinguished gentlemen bows to her.
As I help her out of the carriage, she leans lightly on my arm; the
contact runs through me like an electric shock. She _is_ a wonderful
woman, and I love her more than ever.
* * * * *
For dinner at six she has invited a small group of men and women. I
serve, but this time I do not spill any wine over the table-cloth.
A slap in the face is more effective than ten lectures. It makes you
understand very quickly, especially when the instruction is by the way
of a small woman’s hand.
* * * * *
After dinner she drives to the Pergola Theater. As she descends the
stairs in her black velvet dress with its large collar of ermine and
with a diadem of white roses on her hair, she is literally stunning. I
open the carriage-door, and help her in. In front of the theater I leap
from the driver’s seat, and in alighting she leaned on my arm, which
trembled under the sweet burden. I open the door of her box, and then
wait in the vestibule. The performance lasts four hours; she receives
visits from her cavaliers, the while I grit my teeth with rage.
It is way beyond midnight when my mistress’s bell sounds for the last
time.
“Fire!” she orders abruptly, and when the fire-place crackles, “Tea!”
When I return with the samovar, she has already undressed, and with the
aid of the negress slipped into a white negligee.
Haydée thereupon leaves.
“Hand me the sleeping-furs,” says Wanda, sleepily stretching her lovely
limbs. I take them from the arm-chair, and hold them while she slowly
and lazily slides into the sleeves. She then throws herself down on the
cushions of the ottoman.
“Take off my shoes, and put on my velvet slippers.”
I kneel down and tug at the little shoe which resists my efforts.
“Hurry, hurry!” Wanda exclaims, “you are hurting me! just you wait—I
will teach you.” She strikes me with the whip, but now the shoe is off.
“Now get out!” Still a kick—and then I can go to bed.
* * * * *
To-night I accompanied her to a soiree. In the entrance-hall she
ordered me to help her out of her furs; then with a proud smile,
confident of victory, she entered the brilliantly illuminated room. I
again waited with gloomy and monotonous thoughts, watching hour after
hour run by. From time to time the sounds of music reached me, when the
door remained open for a moment. Several servants tried to start a
conversation with me, but soon desisted, since I knew only a few words
of Italian.
Finally I fell asleep, and dreamed that I murdered Wanda in a violent
attack of jealousy. I was condemned to death, and saw myself strapped
on the board; the knife fell, I felt it on my neck, but I was still
alive—
Then the executioner slapped my face.
No, it wasn’t the executioner; it was Wanda who stood wrathfully before
me demanding her furs. I am at her side in a moment, and help her on
with it.
There is a deep joy in wrapping a beautiful woman into her furs, and in
seeing and feeling how her neck and magnificent limbs nestle in the
precious soft furs, and to lift the flowing hair over the collar. When
she throws it off a soft warmth and a faint fragrance of her body still
clings to the ends of the hairs of sable. It is enough to drive one
mad.
* * * * *
Finally a day came when there were neither guests, nor theater, nor
other company. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wanda sat in the gallery,
reading, and apparently had no orders for me. At dusk when the silvery
evening mists fell she withdrew. I served her at dinner, she ate by
herself, but had not a look, not a syllable for me, not even a slap in
the face.
I actually desire a slap from her hand. Tears fill my eyes, and I feel
that she has humiliated me so deeply, that she doesn’t even find it
worth while to torture or maltreat me any further.
Before she goes to bed, her bell calls me.
“You will sleep here to-night, I had horrible dreams last night, and am
afraid of being alone. Take one of the cushions from the ottoman, and
lie down on the bearskin at my feet.”
Then Wanda put out the lights. The only illumination in the room was
from a small lamp suspended from the ceiling. She herself got into bed.
“Don’t stir, so as not to wake me.”
I did as she had commanded, but could not fall asleep for a long time.
I saw the beautiful woman, beautiful as a goddess, lying on her back on
the dark sleeping-furs; her arms beneath her neck, with a flood of red
hair over them. I heard her magnificent breast rise in deep regular
breathing, and whenever she moved ever so slightly. I woke up and
listened to see whether she needed me.
But she did not require me.
No task was required of me; I meant no more to her than a night-lamp,
or a revolver which one places under one’s pillow.
* * * * *
Am I mad or is she? Does all this arise out of an inventive, wanton
woman’s brain with the intention of surpassing my supersensual
fantasies, or is this woman really one of those Neronian characters who
take a diabolical pleasure in treading underfoot, like a worm, human
beings, who have thoughts and feelings and a will like theirs?
What have I experienced?
When I knelt with the coffee-tray beside her bed, Wanda suddenly placed
her hand on my shoulder and her eyes plunged deep into mine.
“What beautiful eyes you have,” she said softly, “and especially now
since you suffer. Are you very unhappy?”
I bowed my head, and kept silent.
“Severin, do you still love me,” she suddenly exclaimed passionately,
“can you still love me?”
She drew me close with such vehemence that the coffee-tray upset, the
can and cups fell to the floor, and the coffee ran over the carpet.
“Wanda—my Wanda,” I cried out and held her passionately against me; I
covered her mouth, face, and breast with kisses.
“It is my unhappiness that I love you more and more madly the worse you
treat me, the more frequently you betray me. Oh, I shall die of pain
and love and jealousy.”
“But I haven’t betrayed you, as yet, Severin,” replied Wanda smiling.
“Not? Wanda! Don’t jest so mercilessly with me,” I cried. “Haven’t I
myself taken the letter to the Prince—”
“Of course, it was an invitation for luncheon.”
“You have, since we have been in Florence—”
“I have been absolutely faithful to you,” replied Wanda, “I swear it by
all that is holy to me. All that I have done was merely to fulfill your
dream and it was done for your sake.
“However, I shall take a lover, otherwise things will be only half
accomplished, and in the end you will yet reproach me with not having
treated you cruelly enough, my dear beautiful slave! But to-day you
shall be Severin again, the only one I love. I haven’t given away your
clothes. They are here in the chest. Go and dress as you used to in the
little Carpathian health-resort when our love was so intimate. Forget
everything that has happened since; oh, you will forget it easily in my
arms; I shall kiss away all your sorrows.”
She began to treat me tenderly like a child, to kiss me and caress me.
Finally she said with a gracious smile, “Go now and dress, I too will
dress. Shall I put on my fur-jacket? Oh yes, I know, now run along!”
When I returned she was standing in the center of the room in her white
satin dress, and the red _kazabaika_ edged with ermine; her hair was
white with powder and over her forehead she wore a small diamond
diadem. For a moment she reminded me in an uncanny way of Catherine the
Second, but she did not give me much time for reminiscences. She drew
me down on the ottoman beside her and we enjoyed two blissful hours.
She was no longer the stern capricious mistress, she was entirely a
fine lady, a tender sweetheart. She showed me photographs and books
which had just appeared, and talked about them with so much
intelligence, clarity, and good taste, that I more than once carried
her hand to my lips, enraptured. She then had me recite several of
Lermontov’s poems, and when I was all afire with enthusiasm, she placed
her small hand gently on mine. Her expression was soft, and her eyes
were filled with tender pleasure.
“Are you happy?”
“Not yet.”
She then leaned back on the cushions, and slowly opened her
_kazabaika_.
But I quickly covered the half-bared breast again with the ermine. “You
are driving me mad.” I stammered.
“Come!”
I was already lying in her arms, and like a serpent she was kissing me
with her tongue, when again she whispered, “Are you happy?”